June 20, 2002 -
Solar cells go organic - From The Economist print edition, Although they
are not particularly efficient, plastic solar cells that are flexible
enough to be sprayed on roofs or printed on clothes look like being
remarkably cheap. EVERY minute, the sun showers the earth with more
energy than the world's entire population consumes in a year.
Unfortunately, it is expensive to convert all that sunshine into
electricity. Most solar cells are made of inorganic silicon and, like
computer chips, require laborious manufacturing processes that involve
costly clean rooms and vacuum chambers. As a result, solar energy costs
roughly three to four times as much as electricity from conventional
sources. The good news is that recent advances in plastics and
nanotechnology are speeding up the development of cheap, flexible cells
that can be sprayed on walls or even printed on paper and fabrics...
June 13, 2002 -
Antarctic
fringes vulnerable to thaw - By Kathleen Wren, MSNBC SCIENCE,
WASHINGTON, The Antarctic ice sheet holds enough frozen water to be
a major player in the climate change game if it melts. Concerned about a
range of possibilities, from rising sea level to upsets in the oceans’
circulation patterns, scientists have been scrutinizing the continent
for signs of change. A new report in the journal Science, published by
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, suggests that
the ice sheet’s edges are most vulnerable to climate warming, and are
melting faster than scientists had realized...
June 2002 -
Firoz Rasul's Power Trip
- By Ralph King, Business
2.0, June 2002, Issue For 14
years, the CEO of Ballard Power
Systems has led a seemingly
quixotic quest to power cars
using hydrogen. Now this
technology is the best hope for
ending our dependence on foreign
oil -- and it's not as far off
as you might think. In the race
to build the car of the future,
Firoz Rasul had backed himself
into a corner. His company was
making hydrogen-powered fuel
cells for a propulsion system
whose other key components, the
engine and electric drivetrain,
were the responsibility of
Daimler Chrysler (DCX) and Ford
(F). But the partners had taken
to blaming each other for
various technical hitches, and
Rasul could easily imagine their
complex joint venture
collapsing. Scrambling to save
it -- and his Ballard Power
Systems (BLDP), based in
Vancouver, British Columbia --
he made an audacious proposal.
His idea was to put one company
in charge of the whole thing.
The company he had in mind,
Rasul told the two auto giants,
was his own...
Archive
of Environmental News - June
2002
